


God Help Me, Part 9

by ErinGayle



Series: God Help Me [9]
Category: Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26412301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinGayle/pseuds/ErinGayle
Relationships: Freddy Finkel/Captain Klenzendorf, Rosie Betzler/Captain Klenzendorf
Series: God Help Me [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819291
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Monday, February 5

Rosie was working on the budget for the next year when the office was filled with men in dark coats and suits. She looked up and saw Captain Deertz. He went into Herr Gottlieb’s office and closed the door. Rosie froze. She strained to listen. Several men began to go through the secretary’s file cabinets. One of them politely asked her if she could stand aside. Rosie took a deep breath and went to the elderly woman. “Frau Krauter, please sit in my office.”

Frau Krauter pulled a handkerchief to her mouth. “I don’t understand why they are here. We’re a school. Herr Gottlieb has been nothing but a good headmaster and man. He’s a member of the Party.”

Rosie nodded. “Sit on the settee while I talk to Captain Deertz.” Rosie patted her shoulder and stepped out of her office. “Heil Hitler, gentlemen.”

The two men going through Frau Krauter’s desk and file cabinets stopped what they were doing. “Heil Hitler, Frau Betzler,” the greeted her with friendly voices and smiles. They immediately went back to their work. 

Rosie approached Gottlieb’s closed door and knocked. Captain Deertz opened it. “Heil Hitler, Captain Deertz. May I help you and your colleagues?” Rosie tried to look past Deertz’s lanky frame.

Deertz smiled. “Heil Hitler, Frau Betzler. We just have a few questions for Headmaster Gottlieb. If we require your assistance, we will let you know. Thank you.” He closed the door.

Rosie went back to her office. She held the weeping Frau Krauter’s hand and watched the clock tick. After some time, she went back to Herr Gottlieb’s door and knocked again. Captain Deertz opened the door again, somewhat less cheery. “Yes, Frau Betzler?”

“The midday dismissal bell is going to ring in ten minutes. Shall I hold the bell?”

Captain Deertz suddenly understood there would be several hundred children filling the halls and the school yard. “No. That won’t be necessary. Thank you.” He closed the door again.

Rosie heard slightly raised voices. She glanced at the mess being made by the men searching the office. She couldn’t imagine what they were looking for or what Herr Gottlieb might be hiding. The door opened, yet again, and Rosie finally got a look at her boss. He was weeping at his desk, his tie and hair askew.

“Frau Betzler,” Captain Deertz called. “Herr Gottlieb is going to accompany some of my men back to our office. Would you advise the students that school is suspended for the day?”

Rosie felt a cold shock radiate out from her chest. “Of course.” Frau Krauter was usually the one who made announcements, and Rosie had to puzzle her way through the controls. As Rosie turned off the PA system, she knew the students would know something extraordinary had happened. When the boiler broke, they didn’t dismiss school. She wished someone other than Frau Krauter were here. She glanced at the phone and picked it up.

Out of the corner of his eye, Captain Deertz saw Rosie on the phone. “Who are you calling?” he snapped.

“Gerti Rahm at the _Jugend_ office.”

“Why?”

“Because many of the children go over there almost immediately after last dismissal. Captain Klenzendorf makes sure to have something for them to eat every afternoon.

“Ah yes. Klenzendorf’s Café,” Deertz said with barely disguised contempt. 

Rosie ignored the slight. When Gerti answered, Rosie told her that school was dismissed for the day, and the children might arrive early. Gerti was slightly confused and started fussing about Captain K needing his quiet time. Rosie hung up while Gerti was still talking. The bell rang and after a brief storm of noise, the school was silent. Deertz chose that moment for two of his minions to escort Herr Gottlieb away. He knew many of the children and parents would see it, engendering gossip, fear, and renunciations. Rosie sank into Frau Krauter’s chair. Frau Krauter was wailing in Rosie’s office.

“Ah, Frau Krauter,” Deertz sighed. “They built this school around her, and I’m sure it will fall down with her in the very same chair.”

Rosie leaned forward when she heard papers falling in Gottlieb’s office. “Oh my God, the files. Captain Deertz, please ask your men to be careful with the files,” Rosie politely asked. “It takes so long to get them in order and keep them in order.”

Deertz purposely hesitated. “What is in the files?”

Rosie half smiled. “Just student records, employee records, school statistics, receipts, correspondence.” She could still hear paper falling and file folders hitting the floor. 

“We’ll try.” Deertz disappeared into Gottlieb’s office. He came out again with several books. “What can you tell me about this book?” Deertz handed Rosie a copy of Faulkner’s Light in August. 

Rosie looked over the cover. It was the last book Von Corten Press ever published. “American author. Convoluted story with a wandering, confusing narrative. I didn’t care for it.”

“Are you aware that Faulkner is a degenerate author? Tell me, what does the title mean? A Light in August?”

“From what I recall, it refers to a house burning down in the book. Honestly, Captain Deertz, I didn’t follow half the novel.” Rosie read the translated manuscript for grammatical correctness, but she was being honest that she had not cared a bit for Faulkner.

“Hmm. And this one? Modern Military Strategy: Theory and Application. An odd book for a school headmaster.”

Rosie shrugged. “I’ve never seen it. He _is_ a veteran of the Great War.”

Deertz opened the book and the pages fell to a photo. He nearly sneered at it. “Ridiculous. Oberst _Graf_ Franz-Jozef Karl von Corten. And, his son can’t be any more than twelve and addressed as _Graf_ Franz-Karl. And this little girl, _Grafine_ Adelheid.” Deertz loved that he could look down at people so easily while they couldn’t really look up at him. Rosie’s face showed no emotion. “It seems to me that the Oberst bears a striking resemblance to Captain Klenzendorf. What do you think?”

Rosie tried to laugh. “Those old Prussian families all look alike to me, especially in those formal Imperial photos.”

“Your family is old and Prussian, isn’t it? Bischoffen. That’s your maiden name, just like the little girl.”

“No one ever called me Grafine Rosie, that’s for sure. And, after my father died during the influenza, we definitely didn’t have the money Graf von Bischoffen probably left his family. Several times I thought I was going to have to leave the university for lack of money.”

“It was a terrible time,” Deertz commiserated. He closed the book and pocketed it. “If you could advise the staff not to leave the building. We’ll want to speak with them.”

It took hours for the Gestapo to be satisfied with their inspection of the school. Rosie sat quietly panicking but didn’t dare take out her bottle of whiskey. Deertz never returned to tell her he was finished. She heard the doors of the empty school slam shut. All Rosie could think about was that she needed bread, and the bakery near her was out of flour, and that she hoped Herr Gottlieb left his building keys. She had her own set, but the new headmaster was going to need a set, too. 

Rosie collected herself and left her office for the bakery, locking the front doors on the way out. The bakery had a line, and the sun began to sink while she stood in it. She at least was able to get a loaf of brown bread. Tucked under her arm, she walked toward Hohenzollernplatz, not thinking of the gallows there. She barely noticed the crowd and when she did, she thought it was odd two SS troops were out there with rifles. The movement on the gallows caught her eye. Two bodies were still swinging. 

Rosie stopped briefly enough to look up. She clenched her teeth to guard against screaming or vomiting. The Gottliebs were gone. She kept walking, a mother who needed to get home and feed her child. She didn’t have time to gawk at the gallows. But, she stopped thinking. She just walked until she found herself at the HJ building. The lights were still on in the offices. She opened the door and went upstairs.

A few of the children were in the office cleaning up Karl’s toy soldiers from the big oriental carpet. They were precisely ordering the soldiers in the boxes by uniform color and rank. Gerti was pulling on her coat and scarf as Rosie walked by her desk and dropped the bread on it. 

“Hei—” Gerti’s greeting petered out as she watched Rosie detour around the soldier cleanup and walk past Freddie with not a word, something Gerti had seen happen only once when Rosie was on a rampage.

Freddie held up his hand. Rosie totally ignored him. She didn’t even look over and wink at him like she often did.

Karl watched Rosie walk into his office, circle around his desk to the drawer where he kept his whiskey, open it, and refill Karl’s empty glass. She gulped half of it down before topping off the glass and sitting heavily on the fainting couch, where she burst into tears. Gerti and Freddie were in the office, and the children were leaning in at the doorway. 

“What did you do?” Gerti asked Karl. No one thought it odd that Gerti assumed Karl was at fault.

Karl shook his head. “God only knows, because I sure don’t.”

There was running on the stairs in the building, and an adolescent boy burst into the outer office. “Captain K, they just hanged Headmaster and Frau Gottlieb.” The children all gasped. 

Karl stood up at his desk. “What?” he asked with shocked alarm.

The boy almost walked into Karl’s office. Even with the doors open, it was a private space the children had to be invited in to. “I just saw Herr and Frau Gottlieb on the gallows. They were still swinging.” The boy saw Rosie crying on the couch. “Do you think Frau Betzler knows?”

Karl sighed. “Yes. I think she knows. Finkle, time to close up. And, close my office doors behind you.” Once the doors were closed, Karl sat down next to Rosie and leaned back on the couch. Rosie laid against his chest, and Karl wrapped his arms around her as she cried into his shirt. He heard Freddie trying to make the boys go home and not to the gallows.

“No! No! You will not gawk at your headmaster hanging on the gallows!” Freddie could be heard jumping down the stairs to catch up with a pack of morbidly curious twelve year olds. 

Karl checked his pocket watch. It was nearly 5:30. He stroked Rosie’s back through her coat, waiting for her to say something if she wanted to. Just after 5:45, Rosie sat up. “I need to go home to Jojo.”

Karl nodded and handed her his handkerchief. Her makeup had run on her face, and as Karl looked down, his shirt. “I’ll walk you home,” he told her, getting up to change his shirt. He was ready to leave quickly, but as he and Rosie started down the stairs, she began to cry again. She could barely stand up, and Karl had to catch her several times. When Freddie came back from dispersing the children, he found them sitting on the bottom step with Rosie crying into Karl’s greatcoat.

“We need the staff car, Freddie.”

Jojo was sitting on the couch watching the clock tick. It was nearly 6:15. His mother should be home by now. The headlights of a car flashed through the front windows and came to a stop outside. He heard car doors open and close and men’s voices. His muscles tensed. At night he was afraid that every knock on the door would be one with a death notice. As long as no one knocked, his father was still alive. A key scraped in the lock. The door opened, and Jojo leaned forward to look around the corner into the entry hall. His mother was there, and a huge grey great coat, and the sound of Freddie Finkle’s voice behind the door. 

Rosie took off her hat and scarf then her coat. She lackadaisically slopped them onto the garderobe. When she turned around she saw Jojo. “Oh, my little lion cub _.”_ She held out her arms, and Jojo uncertainly went to her. He was hugged mercilessly. 

“Mama, what’s wrong?” He pulled back to look at her. Rosie’s eyes were raw and red, and her makeup was smeared all over her cheeks.

Karl was hanging up his coat and hat and Rosie’s while talking to Freddie. “No, I’ll call you. Someone has to get the kid supper and look after his mother for a while.” Karl closed the front door. He exhaled deeply then turned around to see Rosie hugging Jojo as if their lives depended on the tightness and duration of that hug. “Hey, Jojo.”

“What’s wrong?” Jojo asked again, more anxiously.

“Bad news, Little Man. Herr and Frau Gottlieb have been hanged by the Gestapo.”

Jojo visibly relaxed. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

Rosie nodded her head but began to tear up again. “Come on, Rosie. Let’s get you upstairs where you can take a bath.” Karl put his arm around her and tried to guide her up the stairs. Rosie collapsed on the first step, hanging onto the newel post to keep from slipping into the floor. Karl bent down and picked her up, one arm beneath her legs. As he carried her upstairs, Jojo followed. 

“Wouldn’t a fireman’s carry be easier?” Jojo asked watching Karl negotiate the turn.

“Yes, but so much less dignified.” Karl got Rosie into her room where he sat her on the bed. Jojo followed, not sure of what he should do. “Jojo, go run the water for a bath.” With Jojo out of the way, Karl knelt down in front of Rosie. “Rosie, your son is just a few meters that way. You need to get undressed, into your bathrobe, and go take a bath. OK?”

Rosie nodded. She ran her hands over Karl’s head and rested them on his shoulders. “I can’t stop crying,” she said as the tears came up again. She wiped her eye with her hand and was aghast at the mascara in her palm. “I must look like a mad woman,” she muttered.

“Take a bath, it’ll help.” Karl left Rosie, almost closing the bedroom door behind him. He went into the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine chest.

“Are you looking for something, Captain K?”

“Aspirin. I have a terrible headache.” Karl was really looking for some sedatives. He had some in his pocket, but he’d rather give Rosie something a doctor had already prescribed for her. 

“Mama keeps all of that in the wardrobe in her room. Top drawer.”

“Thank you, Jojo. Do me a favor and watch out for your mother while I make you some supper.” 

Jojo watched the steaming water fill the bathtub. Rosie appeared, and the boy cleared out to the hall where he sat on the steps and listened to his mother bathe. Karl went into Rosie’s bedroom, rummaged her drawers for her prescriptions, and hung his _feldbluse_ on the valet stand, as it was always set when he spent the night. He considered his belt and pistol which he’d dropped on the bed. Instead of rolling it up and putting it on top of the desk as usual, he buckled it back on his hips.

Karl hoped there was something worth putting together for dinner. Even the Army rations he and Freddie got were beginning to dwindle. Luckily, there were a few potatoes, an onion, a bit of speck, and the eggs he’d brought yesterday. The sound of chopping vegetables drifted upstairs to Jojo. He was staring at Inge’s door. He felt like he had to tell Elsa that there was someone else in the house. The sound of water cascading from his mother standing up to reach a towel distracted him. She dragged herself out of the bathroom to her bedroom not even noticing Jojo sitting in the hall. 

The bedroom door was partially open, and when Jojo peeked in, he saw Rosie’s feet and legs and her polka dotted pajamas being pulled over them. As the pajamas slid up Rosie’s legs, he noticed Karl’s _feldbluse_ on the valet stand. His father had hung his clothes there, although Jojo didn’t really have substantial memories of Paul, who was drafted in 1940 to serve as an engineer. He’d been nearly forty at the time. After that, his father was in and out of the house on short leaves. Jojo heard boots on the stairs, and he silently shifted to the wall as if he would never peek into his mother’s room.

“Hey, Jojo. Is your mother out of the bath?”

Jojo looked up at Karl. “She’s getting dressed.”

Karl knocked on the door, but his hand was on the knob, as if he expected to be invited in or was only asking out of courtesy. “Rosie, do you want dinner?”

Rosie was sitting at her dressing table staring at herself in the mirror. She didn’t answer Karl. She didn’t want to think about anything. She just wanted to put her hair up.

“Rosie?” Karl pushed the door open. “Rosie?” he asked stepping into the room. 

Rosie’s elbows were propped on the dressing table’s marble top, her forehead on her clasped hands. Karl pushed the door closed, and Jojo could only hear their conversation. Karl stood next to her, his hand on her shoulder. She leaned into his hip, her hand covering her eyes, trying to hold in the tears. She sat up and used her bath towel to blot her eyes. “I’m going to put my hair up.”

Karl tried to smile reassuringly. He’d seen his men go through this. For months, years they fought, they lost friends, received letters about lost family, were injured themselves, and one day the dam would break. They had to be evacuated as stress casualties because they simply couldn’t fight any longer. If Karl couldn’t get a stressed man evacuated, the medic prescribed little blue barbiturates. “Do you want dinner?” he asked her again, his fingers soothingly stroking her neck. 

“Maybe later.”

Karl caressed her across her shoulders as he withdrew his hand. “I’ll be back in a bit.” Out in the hall, he motioned for Jojo to follow him. Jojo peeked in at his mother. She had her hairbrush in her hand but covered her eyes with her other hand. He caught up with Karl downstairs. Something was already frying in the kitchen.

“What are you making?” Jojo followed Karl into the kitchen and sat at the table. There was already some bread and cheese on the table. Once Karl’s back was turned, Jojo slipped a some of each from the table and hid them in his shirt.

“Tiroler gröstl. It’s a potato hash.”

“I didn’t know you could cook. I thought Herr Finkle cooked.”

Karl shrugged. “When I left university, Herr Finkle was all of five years old. I’ve lived by myself a lot.” He flipped the hash around the pan. Karl left the kitchen and came back with a glass of whiskey from the bar in the dining room.

Jojo was looking at Karl and suddenly noticed something. “Captain K.”

Karl turned the frying pan 180 degrees so both sides would heat evenly. “Yeah?”

“Why are you wearing your pistol in the house?”

Karl looked down to his left hip. “I guess I didn’t take it off when I took off my blouse. Did you eat that bread and cheese already?”

Jojo intimately knew the Wehrmacht uniform regulations. The belt and pistol holster were worn on top of the _feldbluse_ hooked into some small holes. Karl had taken off his _feldbluse_ and put his belt back on. Jojo couldn’t think of a good reason, and too many bad ones, why Karl would feel the need to have his pistol at hand during dinner with a ten year old. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“You don’t need my permission.” Karl sat down in a kitchen chair and picked up his whiskey. He watched Jojo hop up, awkwardly holding his stomach. Sighing, Karl realized he’d left his cigarettes in his _feldbluse._ He didn’t need to smoke in Rosie’s kitchen anyway. What a hash of a day. While Jojo was upstairs, Karl checked his pistol to be sure there was a round in the chamber. After the Gestapo got their hands on someone new, there was usually a flurry of arrests as the victim did what it took to save his life or at least his family.

Upstairs, Jojo checked on his mother. She had managed to put her hair up for the night. She was lying on the bed with her back to the door. Jojo slipped down the hall to Inge’s room. Inside, he lightly tapped on the panel. When it opened, he had his finger on his lips and held out the bread and cheese. Elsa took them silently. “Captain K is here. They hanged my mom’s boss today. So be extra quiet.” Elsa nodded and closed the panel. Jojo almost went downstairs without flushing the toilet. 

Karl was frying two eggs for the Tiroler when Jojo returned. He plated enough hash for him and Jojo, and they ate in the kitchen. Jojo didn’t know if he should try to talk to Karl or not. The other times Karl had eaten at the Betzlers’. He and Rosie and spent the entire meal chatting amiably between themselves. “Captain K, are you left or right handed?”

Karl looked up from his dinner. He usually had a newspaper to read. “Mostly right.”

“Mostly?”

“I can shoot and fence with either. But, I ride to the left, which is how hussars hold the reins.”

Jojo stared at Karl. Captain K could ride a horse and fence? These didn’t seem like useful skills. “But, how can you still shoot so well if you can’t see out of your right eye?” 

“Because I’ve always been left eyed. And, I practice, a lot.”

Jojo felt a shiver go through him, and when he looked up, Karl’s scrambled right eye seemed to be looking not at him but inside of him.

Karl took a long swallow of whiskey. “So, who does the washing up?”

Jojo didn’t want to admit that his mother did everything for him right down to tying his shoes. “I do.”

Karl was skeptical. He’d seen Freddie tie Jojo’s shoes. “OK. Remember not to wash that cast iron pan in soap. Just wipe it out. I’m going to go check on your mother.” Karl finished his whiskey. “Don’t wash this one either.” He got a clean glass from the china cabinet in the dining room before going upstairs. He walked into Rosie’s bedroom as naturally as if it were his own, careful to fully shut the door behind him. “How’s my Schatzie?” he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed. 

Rosie opened red and tired eyes. Her skin was red from tears and her pillowcase was soaked. “I’m so scared. And, I don’t know why. Every time I think of anyone, even people who aren’t dead, I cry. I cry when I wonder what will happen tomorrow. I cry when I think about yesterday.” Rosie put her hand up to wipe away tears pooling near the bridge of her nose, however Karl gently soaked those up with his handkerchief. 

“It’s battle fatigue.”

Rosie shot him a skeptical look. “Battle fatigue. I haven’t been in any battles.”

Karl rubbed her back. “Two years not knowing where your husband is? Losing Inge? Keeping yourself and Jojo fed, warm, and safe when food, fuel, and good humor are getting scarcer. Keeping the school together. Trying to be happy for everyone every day. Your witty anti-war sentiment. I’d say you’ve been in a battle for a long while. Just not one with tanks and artillery.”

Rosie sighed and sat up into Karl’s chest, wrapping her arms around him. She wanted to hold onto someone. Karl took the glass vial out of his pocket and tapped out a blue pill. “You need to take this,” he told her softly.

“What is it?”

“It’ll make you sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Rosie considered refusing him, but the idea of going to sleep and not thinking or crying was a huge temptation. She looked at the blue pill and slowly parted her lips. Karl set the pill on her tongue and felt her lips brush on his fingers as she closed them. He held the glass of water he’d brought to her lips and she swallowed some. 

“Why are you so seductive even when you’re on the precipice?” he asked her. He knew if she weren’t in the fragile state she was in, he’d push her down on the bed to make love to her. 

Rosie rested her head on Karl’s chest. “I think it’s you. I certainly never felt this way towards any other man since I married Paul.”

“Not to discourage this attraction, but what time does Jojo go to bed? Right now, he’s doing the dishes.”

“Jojo’s never done the dishes in his life.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Rosie released Karl and laid down. “He goes to bed at nine. There’re children’s sleeping pills from the hospital if you want him to go to bed earlier. But, only give him half. A full one makes him jittery.” She ran her hand over his. “Stay tonight.”

Karl doubtfully frowned a little. “I don’t know that’s a good idea, Schatzie. What about Jojo?”

Rosie squeezed his hand. “I need you tonight. Spend the night with me.”

Karl looked down at her in her polka dot pajamas and crocheted hair net. She was as far from sexy as she could be, but he felt a primal desire to both protect and possess her. He bent down and kissed her cheek. “Alright, Rosie. You go to sleep. I’ll take care of everything.” Karl pulled the blankets around her, closed the shutters and drapes, and then found the pills for Jojo. Karl didn’t want him wandering around in the night. He took one and slipped it in his pocket before leaving Rosie to fall asleep. 

Jojo was finished with the dishes and looking for another tea towel to wipe up spilled water. Karl stood in the kitchen doorway, saying nothing about the water on the floor, the suds on the wall, or that Jojo was soaking wet from his mid-chest to his waist. “Good job, kid.”

Jojo nodded. “Thanks.” He finished wiping up and hung the towels on the bar. He slid out of the kitchen to the living room. Karl started the coffee percolator. From the couch Jojo listened to Karl on the phone with Freddie.

“Finkie, no need to come get me….Someone needs to look after Rosie and keep an eye on the boy….All the symptoms of fatigue. I gave her a sedative….No. I’ll be in after I walk Rosie to work….OK. Lock up.” Karl hung up, then found himself sitting on the opposite end of the couch. With no idea what to do, Karl looked over at Jojo. “You play cards?”

While Jojo went to change into his pajamas, Karl dropped the half sedative into Jojo’s coffee cup along with two spoonfuls of sugar and poured hot coffee on it to be sure it dissolved. He poured half a cup for himself and topped it off with whiskey. He and Jojo played _Schnappchen._ Karl immediately lost the first round and then Jojo swept the second. Karl kept an eye on Jojo’s coffee. He must have made it just right because Jojo easily drank it. 

After half an hour, Jojo’s eyelids began to droop. Karl made no mention of it, nor did he go easy on Jojo playing cards. Jojo was just good or lucky. Though Karl’s luck turned around when Jojo began nodding his head and snapping back to alertness. Karl finally won a few rounds. He never asked Jojo if he was tired or thought it was time for bed. He waited until Jojo’s head sank onto the dining room table. Karl set his cards down and finished his coffee. Jojo was asleep but still holding tight to his cards. Before Karl picked him up, he checked Jojo’s hand. “Damn. You were going to win that round, too. OK, Herr Hand Grenade, off to bed with you.”

Jojo was ungainly to carry, but Karl managed. All he had to do was ease Jojo into bed and turn out the lights. Before he turned out the lights, Karl looked around Jojo’s room at all the propaganda posters. “Good God, kid. No wonder your mother’s worried about you.” He turned off Jojo’s lamp and closed the door. 

Karl checked the door locks, made sure the stove was off, the shutters closed, and curtains drawn. He patted his sidearm and, satisfied that the house was secure, went upstairs. He stripped in Rosie’s room and hung up the rest of his uniform. If Paul were dead, he’d leave clothes here. But, Paul was neither confirmed dead nor seemingly alive. Karl found Paul’s disappearance and the Wehrmacht’s inability to even lie about it suspicious. He presumed there was some monumental incompetence married to a refusal to admit error which explained the whole thing. 

Perhaps it was for the best that Paul was in administrative limbo. If Rosie were a widow, this whole affair would have a completely different cast to it. She might be looking for a second husband and a step-father for Jojo, and Karl might have to more judiciously choose between Rosie and Freddie. A scorned ex-lover was not to be trifled with in these days. Tired, but not sleepy, Karl took a long bath in which he just enjoyed the hot water. His pistol was on the stool in the bathroom.

As Karl lay down in bed wearing Paul’s pajama pants, Rosie stirred and sat up. Karl sat up as well. “Rosie, come lay down with me.”

“I have to feed Elsa.” Rosie was fumbling with the covers.

Karl gently pushed Rosie back down on the bed. “Elsa? Who’s Elsa?” he asked as he straightened and laid the covers on Rosie.

“The tiger. In Inge’s room.” Her voice drifted away as she fell asleep again. 

Karl stared at Rosie and then the bedroom door. The Betzlers' didn’t even have a cat. Karl got out of bed and picking up his pistol from the bedtable carefully went to Inge’s room. He’d never been in there or even seen the door opened. He let the door swing open and looked through the darkness before turning on a light. Glancing around, there were no tigers of any kind in the room. He walked across the floor looking for anything amiss. What he noticed was a scratch in the varnish. It looked recent. 

Paul was a precise man. If he had installed a swinging panel, it wouldn’t drag on the floor. Karl stood in front of the panel, staring at it. There could be many reasons for that scratch. This could be just a bit of under the eave storage. Perhaps Inge had used it as her secret lair where she could escape into her own fantasies. He thought about the size of the space that must be back there, and how a girl might covet and guard it from her mother and annoying little brother as a place to hide her personal Holy of Holies. Karl held out his hand and almost touched the panel. Or perhaps…. Karl decided he didn’t want to know what was behind that panel and backed away from it. 

Instead, Karl looked over Inge’s desk. He was happy to see that Inge had not been the kind of girl to join the BDM. He’d never seen her name on any of the rosters. She was a more cultured, sophisticated girl judging from the ballet slippers and violin. Karl opened a folder to see a marked up piece of music, Mendelsohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. He barely touched the penciled notations written with good penmanship. Inge couldn’t write her name the last time he’d seen her. A postcard of the Eiffel Tower was tacked to the wall above her desk. Karl took it down and flipped it over. 

_Dear Inge,_

_I can’t wait for you and your mother to visit me in France. We’ll have coffee and croissants right here._

_Love,_

_Papa_

Karl carefully replaced the postcard. Perhaps if the Nazis hadn’t come to power, if he hadn’t left Berlin, if the Party hadn’t torn the world apart, it could be Karl financing Inge’s adventure in Paris, even chaperoning with Lise. He had not taken the religious part of being a godfather seriously, believing his job was to make sure Inge had her heart’s desire, which when she was a toddler had been fairly easy. He could imagine her now at fifteen, sullenly dropping her schoolbooks in the floor of his old office on Adlerhof with world weary frustration that her parents were so fusty, but her indulgent godfather Karl could sway them. 

Barely exhaling under the quilt, Elsa listened to soft but heavy footsteps leave the room and close the door. 


	2. Tuesday, February 6

The alarm rang at 7:00 am, and Karl reached over Rosie to silence it. She woke at his movement and pulled his arm around her. “Do you remember all the Sundays we stayed in bed nearly all day?”

Karl nuzzled her neck. “Yes. I also remember all my potential boyfriends who came by for impromptu picnics in the Wald, and you scared them off by prancing out of my bedroom in nothing more than my rumpled shirt with not even a button fastened.”

Rosie turned over in his arms. “You didn’t have to take me home with you.” 

She kissed him good morning and laid her head on his shoulder while her hand gently caressed his stomach. She kissed Karl’s chest as her fingers brushed against the waist band of the pajama pants then beneath them.

Karl gently pulled her hand away from him. “Maybe another morning,” he whispered as he kissed her.

“I can’t believe you’re saying no.”

“It is a wonder.”

Jojo climbed the stairs to wash his face before he got dressed. He was unusually sluggish this morning and wondered how late he and Captain K had stayed up playing cards. Probably all night. As he stepped into the bathroom, he saw the shocking and unfamiliar sight of a bare chested man in uniform trousers shaving. Karl had folded the high waist of his trousers down to his hips to keep it from getting wet. “Captain K?”

Karl couldn’t see Jojo, him being on the right. “Hey, Little Man. Good thing we weren’t playing for money last night. You would have cleaned me out, and I’d be asking Finkle for a loan.” Karl pulled his neck tight and used swift, short strokes with the straight razor. 

Jojo smiled to himself. “So, you spent the night?”

“Yes. Your mother was in no condition to be by herself.”

“Did you sleep on the couch?”

“Yes,” Karl easily lied.

“Do you know what Herr Gottlieb did?”

“No.”

“Do you think we’ll find out?”

“Have you considered a career as an attorney?” Karl jested. He was using broader strokes on his cheeks and deft ones around his mouth. When he finished, he rinsed the razor then his face. He heard Jojo gasp when he turned his back to reach for a towel. Karl knew the shrapnel scars streaked across the width of his back. Karl dried his face and turned back toward Jojo. “It’s not pretty, is it? And, to think all those idiots at university wanted _mensur_[1] scars on their faces to make them look brave and manly.”

Jojo cringed as he looked at Karl’s scarred chest. “You’ve gotten wounded, a lot.”

“Yeah, I have.” Karl looked down at his chest. “This one on my left shoulder is from Poland. This here on my right hip is Moscow. Took a chip out of that. I got shot in the thigh and broke my other leg at Stalingrad. That’s my luckiest injury. My left side here, that was in Smolensk. Just a flesh wound. And, of course, my eye, back, and right shoulder was at Kursk.”

“Was that Operation Screw Up?”

“Yes, it was. I need to get dressed.” Karl tousled Jojo’s hair as he left the bathroom. 

When Jojo came out of the bathroom, he glanced in his mother’s room. He saw Karl sitting on the bed pulling on his boots. Jojo watched Karl buckle his belt over the _feldbluse_ and then take his pistol from the bed table and tuck it into its case. He thought it odd that Karl had left his pistol unsecured all night in his mother’s room. Jojo was pretty sure his mother couldn’t shoot a pistol. Karl also fluffed the pillows and made the bed. Jojo quietly slipped down the stairs before Karl could catch him spying on him. 

In the kitchen Rosie was cooking wursts and eggs. She heard Karl’s boots skipping down the stairs and nearly broke into tears again. She hadn’t heard that sound since Paul left the last time. 

“That’s my favorite dress,” Karl said, leaning against the kitchen doorway.

Rosie smiled. She hadn’t heard a compliment like that in years either. “I like it, too. Some people feel it’s a little flirty for school, but I need some bright blue in my day today.”

Karl stepped into the kitchen close to Rosie. “Are you going to make it through the day?” he asked as his hand settled on the small of her back. 

“Yes. I think I’ll be able to stop crying if I start today.”

Karl couldn’t stop from bending down to kiss her; however, Jojo’s room door banged open, and Karl stepped away quickly. Jojo came bustling into the kitchen, squeezing between Rosie and Karl. “Mama, is there any milk?”

“There are two too many people in this kitchen. Now, both of you, get out. Karl, the coffee is on the dining room table."

Jojo didn't have an answer to his question, but he felt Karl’s hand on his back guiding him out of the kitchen anyway. The two of them sat down in the dining room, where the flatware was on the table with the coffee cups and one glass. Bread and jam were already on a plate. Karl sat down at the place with a newspaper, not even asking if that was where Rosie normally sat. He poured himself a cup of coffee. “Coffee, Jojo?” he asked holding up the pot. Jojo nodded.

“There’s milk in there,” Rosie called. “He needs to drink that.”

Karl held his finger up to his lips. He looked back at Rosie, who was engaged with the sausages, and put sugar in Jojo’s cup then filled it half-way with coffee and the rest of the way with milk. Karl looked at the headlines of the newspaper and knew how wrong they were.

“Why was breaking your leg lucky?” Jojo sipped the milky coffee.

Karl turned the page in paper. “Well, the fighting in Stalingrad was really tough. House to house, room to room. There was a lot of bombing and artillery. We were rousting out Reds when the house we were in was hit by artillery and collapsed around us. My leg was stuck under a beam, and Freddie Finkle dug me out and dragged me to the street. That’s where I got shot as he tried to find us cover. He got me to an aid station, and he also helped find other men from my company. It was lucky, because we got out of Stalingrad in September. Neither of us was there for the siege.”

Jojo thought about Freddie’s uniform. He had a bronze wound badge and a silver assault badge. “If he saved people, why didn’t he get an Iron Cross?”

Sighing heavily, Karl put down the paper. “You know all those fancy medals colonels and generals have?” Jojo nodded. “They give them to each other to congratulate themselves on how brilliant and heroic they were around a map table. Enlisted men like Freddie don’t get fancy awards, even if they earn them. I submitted the paperwork. It was denied. I appealed, it was denied again, and my bosses warned me to stop.”

Frowning, Jojo shrank down in his chair some. “That’s not fair.”

“No. It’s not.”

Her dress still covered by an apron, Rosie swept into the room carrying plates like a waitress. “OK, who had the eggs and sausage? Fieldmarshall Jojo?” Rosie asked setting down a plate for Jojo. He blushed at her nickname for him considering what he and Karl had just discussed. “And the eggs and sausage goes to Captain Klenzendorf. And eggs and sausage for the cook.” Rosie sat down in her usual chair. 

Karl picked up his knife and fork. “So, you’re who I should be talking to about Finkle’s medal?” He winked at Jojo with his bad eye.

Rosie picked up a piece of bread and slathered her homemade jam on it. “What medal for Herr Finkle?”

“Captain K was telling me how Herr Finkle saved his life and other people in Stalingrad. But, he didn’t get a medal.”

“Oh really?” Rosie asked. “Then I suppose I should save those wursts for Herr Finkle.”

Karl was eating his eggs. “He more than deserves them.”

They ate breakfast quickly, and though Karl was ready to leave, he waited at the table reading the paper while Rosie washed the dishes. When he heard the sink begin to drain, he walked into the hall where Jojo sat on the steps trying to tie his shoes. Karl surreptitiously watched him for a few minutes. “You need some help, Jojo?”

Jojo felt his ears burning with embarrassment. “Yes,” he answered very quietly. He could barely look at Karl tying his shoes for him. When Karl was finished, Jojo turned around on the stairs. “I have to brush my teeth,” he called back as he ran up the stairs.

“Rosie, why can’t the kid tie his shoes?” Karl asked wearily.

When Jojo heard that, he looked back down the stairs. Karl was standing with one foot on the bottom step, his arm draped over the railing, and his other hand rested on his hip. He looked like…a father. Karl suddenly smiled at something Rosie said. Jojo could only hear her voice not what she said. Jojo tried to remember his father and was unable to. He ran upstairs and lackadaisically brushed his teeth then eased onto the landing to listen to his mother and Karl.

“What’s taking him so long?” Karl repeated as he put on his coat. “He’s probably up there where no one can see him listening in on the adults downstairs. I found out all kinds of things hiding in the dark corner of the upstairs balcony. You remember my Aunt Elizabeth? Found out she had three captains and a major on the string by hiding up there.”

Rosie appeared at the foot of the stairs. “My mother could still run audacious rings around her. Jojo, let’s go!” She already had her coat on as well.

Rushing down the stairs, Jojo explained, “I wanted to make sure I got all my teeth.” He grabbed his hat from the garderobe and looked up at Karl and Rosie. He suddenly wished his father had come home to be the _Jugend_ leader, then every morning could be just like this. Rosie closed the front door behind them and locked it.

Looking for a bakery with bread, Freddie was walking along the _hauptstrasse_ when he saw a horrifying sight: Captain and Frau Klenzendorf walking their son to school. Freddie gasped when he saw Karl and Rosie walking side by side, with Jojo holding his mother’s hand but skipping backwards in front of her as he animatedly explained something. Karl was discretely surveying the street for threats while also giving smiling glances to the ever chicly dressed Rosie. Rosie was focused on making sure Jojo didn’t skip into anyone. All that was needed to complete the picture of them as the perfect family of the New Reich was a pram with a toddler in it and maybe a large, hairy dog.

Freddie wiped the tears out of his eyes and told himself it was just the wind and the dry, winter air. However, as the trio moved away, Freddie saw how Karl’s hand easily rested in the small of Rosie’s back. It hit him that Karl was walking with Her. The woman he was so jealous of and who stole Karl away from him two nights a week was Rosie Betzler.

“Fraulein Rahm, where’s Sergeant Finkle gotten himself to?” Karl asked as he returned a stack of signed papers. Command and staff at the hospital had been mercifully short, and Karl excused himself once he was assigned to devise an evacuation route with no destination in particular.

Gerti didn’t look up from her typing. She picked up a worn handkerchief as she hit the silver carriage return. She’d ended up in Herr Gottlieb’s office more than once for silly things like wearing makeup to school or skirts that were too short. He’d always told her that while being a mother was wonderful she needed to be able to support herself and her children in case the worst happened to her husband. Gerti sniffled into her handkerchief with pink scalloped edges. “He said he needed to re-inventory all the rifles and make sure all the part serial numbers matched on the guns.”

Karl frowned. Freddie was checking three serial numbers on each rifle. He wandered out of the office and to the storeroom he and Freddie had converted to an arms room. Knocking he waited for Freddie to unlock the door. 

“Sir?” Freddie asked, not moving from the doorway.

Karl looked over Freddie. He looked exhausted, almost sick. “Are you alright? You look kind of ill.”

Freddie forced himself to smile. “I’m fine, sir.”

Karl was skeptical, but he didn’t want to pry. “How long do you think it’ll take to do the inventory?”

Freddie looked anywhere but at Karl. “All day, I think, sir. I think I’ll have to work through _mittagessen_. You might want to run out to a pub.”

Karl slowly nodded. “I’ll let you know before I leave, in case you have time to come.”

“Yes, sir.”

Karl absently knocked his knuckles against the door frame. He gave Freddie the once over again. Freddie was obviously upset, probably that Karl had very openly spent the night at the Betzlers’, and Karl almost asked if Freddie knew about Rosie. “I’ll be in my office.”

Freddie nodded, closed, and locked the door. He sat down on the chair he’d brought in the room. There was a rifle laying on the worktable, but Freddie ignored it. He took out his handkerchief and blotted his eyes. He’d seen Karl with other women. He treated them nicely, but rarely had he carried on much of a relationship with them. A month maybe six weeks at most. And, for whatever reason, Karl had been secretly sleeping with Rosie Betzler since at least October.

Freddie would allow that this affair had been good for Karl. Freddie couldn’t remember the last time Karl was drunk all day on a Sunday or stuck on the endless loop of Pervitin to get through the day and barbiturates to sleep. Rosie wouldn’t put up with a drunk or a drug addict tripping into her house in the evening. The January incident was an aberration with an altruistic aim. But, then why couldn’t Karl curb his drug and alcohol use for him?

And, Freddie didn’t blame Rosie for the affair or its secrecy. She was lonely but had a respected position in the community. She didn’t need to be explaining herself to anyone and especially not to Jojo. Freddie blamed Karl. This affair of his was not just to protect them from suspicion. He had actual feelings for Rosie, and Freddie recalled how she absolutely glowed when she and Karl were together. Everyone was going to have their hearts broken when it all ended, and Karl abandoned this feckless love: Freddie, Rosie, Jojo, maybe even Herr Betzler. Everyone but Karl. Freddie realized he was angry with Karl for treating Rosie as if she was his special treasure when Karl was just using her to keep up appearances and for some kind of succor Freddie just couldn’t give him. 

Frau Krauter was keeping a pile of handkerchiefs on her desk to staunch the flow of tears for the Gottliebs. When the captain came in, he had so gently asked after her and how she was holding up. He had such nice manners, like dear Herr Gottlieb. She hoped he was imparting those manners on the scruffy children who attended the school in these days. Some of the boys had been hooting and dancing in the platz the previous evening. She gave the list to Frau Betzler.

Rosie and Karl sat in her office with their books open, but neither wanting to start. Doing so seemed too normal on a decidedly abnormal day. “How was it today?” Karl asked.

“Subdued.”

“Even Fraulein Rahm was upset.” Karl stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes. “You need to start making a plan, Rosie,” Karl softly said.

Focusing on Karl, Rosie shook her head. “What? Where could I possibly go? My family is gone. The Betzlers are gone. You….” Her voice drifted off into silence.

The door to the school office opened and closed, the glass rattling enough that it could be heard in Rosie’s office. She looked up and saw an abnormally tall shadow. “Oh God,” she fearfully whispered. “He’s back.”

Karl looked over his shoulder and immediately stood up. He sat down on the front edge of Rosie’s desk. They both tried to look as calm and unconcerned as possible when Frau Krauter opened the office door. “Frau Betzler, Captain Deertz is here.” The old woman’s voice shook either from fear or because she’d just started crying again and dabbing at her eyes with a fresh handkerchief. 

Deertz loomed over poor Frau Krauter, who had to duck under his arm to get away. “Heil Hitler.” He wasn’t surprised to see Karl physically between him and Rosie. It was almost touching.

Karl and Rosie both gave suitable heils, and Karl did not stand up from the desk. Rosie tried to smile. “Herr Deertz, what a surprise. Would you like to have a seat?” she greeted him as if it were any other day.

Deertz smiled. “Of course, thank you.” He sat in Karl’s abandoned chair. “I must be honest and say that I came by now in hopes you would both be here. I am going to address the faculty and students of the school tomorrow.”

Rosie didn’t tell him she thought that was incredibly presumptuous. “I see. What time would you like to have your assembly and where?”

“The school yard at dismissal time. And, of course, Captain Klenzendorf will be there.”

“I will?” Karl asked in surprise. He wasn’t actually surprised that Deertz wanted to co-opt the _Jugend_. 

“Yes. I want us all to work as a team for the children. To show that the Gestapo, the _Jugend_ , and the school are all united in furthering the Führer, the Party, and the Reich.” Deertz was smiling, he knew he was probably frightening Rosie, but Karl was going to be harder to cow. 

“First dismissal or final dismissal, Herr Deertz?” Rosie asked as she picked up a pencil to make a note in the school’s master schedule. 

“Tricky. What do you think would have the most punch?”

“Well, first dismissal they leave for lunch, and I have to admit, a few don’t come back like they should. But, last dismissal they are going home for the evening and more likely to talk with their families.”

“I see. Then last dismissal.”

“Of course. Will 2:45 be sufficient for 3 pm dismissal?”

“Let’s say 2:30, then if I finish early, they can leave a little early.” Deertz was pleased with himself. 

Rosie kept smiling. “Of course.”

“You haven’t asked me why I want to address the students.”

“I assume you want to explain the situation with Herr Gottlieb.”

“Always perceptive, Frau Betzler.” Deertz stood up. “Well, I will let you two get back to your little meeting. Heil Hitler.”

Rosie and Karl heiled Deertz, and Karl held the door for him. As soon as Deertz was gone, Karl closed the door. He looked over at Rosie, who already had her whiskey bottle and glasses out. “Let’s skip the glasses and just drink from the bottle,” Karl suggested.

Rosie poured generously. 

[1] Mensur, or academic, fencing is a unique variation of fencing practiced in Central Europe which replaced open dueling. A fencing scar was supposed to prove that a man had the virility necessary to accept a challenge, fight, and tolerate pain. 


	3. Wednesday, February 7

As Deertz crossed Hohenzollernplatz on a morning errand, he saw Karl standing in front of the gallows looking up at Herr Gottlieb and slowly smoking a cigarette. “Heil Hitler, Captain.”

Karl looked over his shoulder. “Heil Hitler, Captain.” Greeting that man by a rank was personally galling to Karl. He turned his eye back to the Gottliebs. “Where’s his leg?”

“We sent it along to Wehrmacht supply. I’m sure some unfortunate soldier can use it.”

Karl gave Deertz a scandalized stare. “You made a one legged war veteran hop to the gallows?”

“Of course, we didn’t. We aren’t barbarians. We brought him out in a push chair.”

This didn’t comfort Karl at all. 

“I take it you don’t agree with hanging convicted traitors,” Deertz challenged Karl.

Karl sighed. “I saw the Gestapo and the SS utterly fail to root out all manner of resistance and treachery in the East leaving a trail of blood and bodies. I guess the idea was _pour encourager les autres_.”

Deertz hated French in school. “Indeed.”

“You know, that phrase is from Candide but based on the execution of a British admiral after the Battle of Minorca in 1756.”

“I hated reading Voltaire in the original. He deserves to be banned.”

Karl took another puff from his cigarette. “Be that as it may, Admiral Byng was a scapegoat. _Pour encourager les autres_ is the height of sarcasm.”

Deertz looked down at Karl. “That sounds a bit defeatist.”

Karl looked at Deertz like the man was utterly uneducated. “Strategic retreat is not the same as surrender.”

“So, why aren’t you peppering some Army group staff with your historical bon mots?”

“I told a senior officer to go fuck himself and the idiotic battle plan he was committing us to.” Karl saw Deertz’s shock. “You know how it works, Deertz. A sergeant tells a captain to go fuck himself, he gets sent to a _strafbatailon_. A captain tells a colonel the same thing, he gets a good smack and sent to the worst line company they can find for him.”

“And, who did you tell to go fuck himself?”

Karl ground out his cigarette butt and smiled widely. “A General of Infantry. Heil Hitler, Captain Deertz. See you this afternoon.”

Deertz seethed as Karl walked away. The man was entitled irreverence personified. He might be the unacknowledged, bastard son of parasitic nobility, but their unfounded privilege still protected him from just punishment.

It was hard to surreptitiously glance at a pocket watch. You had to pull it out and open it all while looking down. Karl, therefore, had not looked even once at his watch since Deertz began his sermon. Karl and Rosie were told to stand to the side of Deertz as he occupied the top step of the main entrance into the school. Deertz’s deputies were arrayed around the yard, watching for anyone not paying attention. It was a cold, windy, overcast afternoon. Snow was in the air. As Karl looked over the captive audience, he saw them shivering and their eyes downcast. If they were listening, it was half-heartedly.

Herr Gottlieb’s crime was anti-party sentiment and not restraining or reporting his wife who was more and more vocal in her hatred of Hitler and his personal hand in the destruction of her family. Being a Party member made his treason all the more heinous. Deertz went on maniacally that it was imperative such attitudes be rooted out. Only by exterminating such belief would Germany win the war against the profiteers, Communists, and Jews. Only by absolute belief in National Socialism and the word of the Führer would the German people survive. It was the duty of every German, no matter how old or young, to report anti-Party sentiment, crime, and the presence of Jews, Communists, or other undesirables to the Gestapo, no matter who that person was, even if it was your dearest loved one. Sacrifices must be made for the purity of the Aryan people.

“In sum,” Deertz said as he wrapped up his speech. “You _must_ call upon us anytime you have a concern about anyone. Those who do not are just as guilty as the reprobate and will be dealt with in the same manner. Sieg Heil!”

Karl and Rosie both held out their arms and returned the Heil along with the students and faculty. Deertz repeated himself twice more. He loved the way it sounded when a large group Heiled together. It was a beautiful unity of purpose to him, much better than singing in church or even old folk songs in a _stube_. Not noticing the lack of enthusiasm in their heils, Deertz beamed with joy and fulfillment as he watched the students and faculty disperse. 

“My goodness. My toes are absolutely freezing,” Deertz said as he turned to loom over Rosie and Karl. 

“Well, no rest for the weary.” Rosie slid her crop from where she had held it in her coat pocket. 

Deertz took a step back. “And, what are you going to do with that?”

Rosie was surveying the students. “I’m about to break up Katerine Mühler and Ferdinand Tannshauer. He has his tongue down her throat.” Rosie went lightly down the stone steps into the milling throng. 

Deertz looked over at Karl, who was smiling approvingly. “I have to wonder how Herr Betzler will react to your friendship with his wife.”

“I assume he and I will have quite a lot in common, both of us being officers. She told me he used to hunt and fish up here.”

Deertz didn’t see how any man would countenance any friendship with his wife’s lover. 

Karl continued. “Falkenheim is quite lucky to have her. I imagine if the Russians invaded, she would order them into desks until the dismissal bell rang. And, they would sit.” 

“And the Americans?”

“Disreputable, undisciplined rabble.”

“Indeed.”

“Good Day, Captain Deertz.” Karl walked out into the courtyard where he was stopped every few feet by students who wanted to talk to him. 

Deertz felt an uncomfortable flush on his cheeks. Captain Klenzendorf was popular, very popular. He was walking through a crowd of young people, and they liked him. They were confiding in him. They wanted his approval and respect. No one ever looked at Herman Deertz or treated Herman Deertz that way. People feared him, but no one liked him. Swallowing his jealousy, Deertz gathered up his men and left. 

After the Gestapo left, Rosie felt a release of tension in the crowded school yard. The students finally began to leave like they would have on any other day. Soon, Karl and Rosie were the only ones left. Rosie pocketed her crop and looked around. Sometimes an empty school yard was peaceful, other times lonely. Today it seemed sinister. Karl wanted to put his arm around Rosie and walk her home.

“You know what this school yard is perfect for?” he asked instead.

“No, what?”

Karl took her right hand in his left and put his right hand around her waist. “Waltzing.” He smiled and began humming. Rosie agreeably followed.

“ _The Kaiserwaltz_?” Rosie asked as she twirled with Karl.

“Oma Irena’s favorite.” Karl couldn’t help but keep smiling at Rosie as she let her head hang back and imagined herself in a ballroom with Paul. 

Freddie put dinner on the plates. “How’d the thing with Deertz go today?”

Karl groaned from the table. “Don’t worry. I was nice to him.” He picked up his beer. “Deertz is getting more and more dangerous.”

Freddie set the plates on the table and sat down with Karl. Karl’s hand was lying on the table. Freddie covered it with his own hand. “We just have to make it through.”

“I’d rather be at the front. It’s so much clearer there. So much less to worry about.” Karl squeezed Freddie’s hand. He ate dinner but couldn’t have told Freddie what he ate. In addition to having to hide both his love affairs from the rest of the world, he felt he had to give Freddie and Rosie equal attention or at least intensity of attention. It was hard to do that when he spent so much time with Freddie, and his time with Rosie was constrained to her office or her bedroom. As the war ground down, he also began to feel Freddie and Rosie pulling at him to go in very different directions. He couldn’t begin to decide if he needed to go with Freddie or stay with Rosie. As much as Karl told himself Paul was coming home, he sincerely doubted it.

Freddie could see that Karl was distracted. He wondered what Deertz could have said that cast such a cloud over Karl. To break the awkward silence after he did the dishes, Freddie turned on the radio. It was more popular music, not heavy waltzes or symphonies. Freddie picked up the broom and took it for a spin sweeping. He was shocked when Karl cut in. Karl immediately began to lead in a Lindy Hop. Freddie had no idea what to do and just followed Karl’s directions. Swing dancing had been politically controversial when he was a teenager. 

“Karl, how often did you go dancing when you were young?”

“How often? Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And Sunday, usually for tea at the Esplanade.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to stay there last summer?”

“Oh, no. I really didn’t want to stay there because it is, was, a huge target. If I’m going to die in Berlin, it’s not going to be in the rubble of a Nazi hotel.”

Freddie thought Karl’s objection had more to do with escaping Krieger. He came as close to Karl as he could and laid his head on Karl’s shoulder. Karl slowly slid his arms more tightly around Freddie. He felt the way Freddie’s chest cut into such a strong back. Resting his cheek against Freddie’s, Karl thought of how often Freddie knew exactly what to do before Karl asked. Freddie was the second longest relationship he’d had in his entire life, and he also thought how pathetic that was. He’d slept with probably hundreds of people in his life, and other than the one lifelong love he had, his longest relationship was two years. The next after that only months to an abusive narcissist. Indiscriminate sex wasn’t love. 

“I wish I had met you a long time ago,” Karl whispered. “I would have had longer to love you.”

Whenever Karl even came close to acknowledging a feeling, Freddie loathed to say anything lest he break the spell of Karl revealing his heart. 


	4. Thursday, February 8

Karl walked into the office at 8:30 with his usual cup of coffee. “Heil Hitler, Fraulein Rahm.”

“Heil Hitler,” she sang back without looking up. “Here’s this month’s conscription list.” She absently handed the list to Karl.

Karl set down his coffee cup on Gerti’s desk as he perused the list. “Fraulein Rahm, have you already typed up these notices?” he asked with trepidation.

“Yesterday afternoon. Jojo delivered them, too.”

Karl stared at Gerti. “What!”

Gerti looked up. “That’s what we always—”

“There are eleven year olds on this list!” he yelled. “That pudgy little friend of Jojo Betzler’s is on this list! Yorkie! For God’s sake! Eleven year olds don’t belong in the goddamn army!”

Gerti felt her hands shaking. She’d never seen Karl mad like this. His scrambled eye was piercing her like a burning sword. “We—” she tried to say something, but her voice petered out.

“You want kids in the army! Give them your kids! Not mine!”

“But, they aren’t your kids,” Gerti managed to squeak out.

Karl threw the list at her, and it exploded in fluttering white sheets. “They’re all my kids!” he roared as he stalked away

Freddie ran down the stairs when he heard Karl start yelling. He found Gerti pressing her shaking fingers against her trembling lips to calm down. “Captain, sir!” Freddie said with officially appropriate sternness.

“Leave me alone!” Karl reached for the doors to his office and slammed them shut.

Freddie turned back to Gerti. She was attempting to stop her tears from ruining her makeup. “Gerti,” he said, picking up papers scattered around her desk chair. “Let’s make you a cup of _krautertee_.”

Karl’s office doors only opened at midday, when he left to get something to eat. He skulked over to the _ratskeller_ and ignored the cheese and wursts in front of him while drinking terrible whiskey. The bartender was surprised Karl was there drinking at midday. When the captain came in, it looked like he’d just found out his best friend, favorite dog, and trustiest horse had all died. Karl set too much money on the bar and left, returning to the office but not closing his doors. He sat in his chair and flipped his rosary around his fingers.

Magda cautiously approached the doors. Karl looked terrible to her. His face was pale, and his eyes were red, even the blind one. “Captain K?”

“Yes, Magda,” Karl asked wearily. There was a notice on his desk that he was to begin training the girls in marksmanship. This wasn’t the beginning of the end. It was over. This was Berlin refusing to reckon with reality.

“Can Aggy come over here after school?”

“Sure. Why not?” Karl asked rhetorically.

“She’s only nine. She’s not old enough. Jacob needs to sleep during the day since he got a job as a night telegraph operator.”

Karl stared at Magda. “It’s fine, Magda,” he told her gently but without interest. As Magda walked away, Gerti came in with a list. Karl knew it was this week’s list of dead HJs. He sighed as he held out his hand.

“I’m so sorry, Captain K,” Gerti said. Her eyes glistened with fearful tears.

Karl’s eyebrows crossed in confusion, then he looked down at the list. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

While Karl read the increasingly irrelevant newspaper, Freddie cleaned up dinner and centered himself enough to tell Karl what he had decided. It had taken him two days to work up to this. Karl had a terrible day, but this needed to be said now that Freddie knew about Rosie and had an inkling how Karl really felt about her. He dried his hands and sat down at the table. “Karl, we need to talk.”

Karl’s eyes flicked up. This was just not the time. “God, help me. Why?”

Freddie reached for Karl’s hand that wasn’t holding a glass of whiskey. “Karl, when the war is over, I’m going home to Dortmund.”

Karl nodded. “I know that.”

“Karl, I love you. I’ve never known what it was like to fall in love with someone you wanted to spend your whole life with, but now I do. And, I do want to spend my whole life with you. But, after the war, it won’t be Sergeant and Captain. It’ll just be Herr Finkle and Herr Klenzendorf.”

Karl slowly nodded again. “Yes.”

“I want to be with you, Karl. Forever,” Freddie said trying not to let his voice catch. “But, I want to be the only one with you. That means no other men and no other women. Just the two of us.”

Karl barely nodded. “I understand that, Freddie.”

Freddie waited a moment. “That’s it?”

Karl shrugged. “Freddie, I’ve never had only one lover at a time. Ever. The first girl I had sex with worked in the kitchen. I began having sex with her brother, a stable boy, three weeks later and with another boy, a student a little older than me, a few weeks after that. I’ve just slept with whoever felt right at the time.”

Freddie’s eyes widened. This was incomprehensible to him. “What?”

Karl nodded. “I’ve never been faithful to anyone, not even my darling Schatzie. That’s why she left me for her husband.”

“Have you ever even tried?”

Karl sighed. “No. Not really. I know you love me. I love you as well, but I don’t know that I can be only with you. And, knowing that you won’t put up with me sleeping around after this is all over is a good thing. You know what you want, and you’ve told me.”

Freddie sat back. “You are absolutely infuriating, Karl. I pour my heart out—”

“You’re standing up to me, Freddie. That’s a good thing.”

“But what about us?”

“I don’t know about us after the war. But, you’ve laid down the law for me if I want to stay with you.”

Freddie left the table in a mixture of disgust and disappointment. “What is with you!” he suddenly accused.

Karl shrugged. He couldn’t tell either Freddie or Rosie he wanted both of them, though he thought Rosie might have guessed it and be willing to acquiesce. Freddie had his pride, though, and a man’s male lover would always have to take second place socially to his female companion, whether she was his wife, lover, or girlfriend. What had seemed like an easy choice at Christmas wasn’t so easy now that Karl worried more over Deertz’s focus on Rosie than the odds the _feldjägerkorps_ would drag away Freddie and him for being gay. 

“If you had asked me to this morning, I would have gone anywhere with you!” Freddie confessed as he slammed his fist on the table. “I would even stay in godforsaken Falkenheim with you so you could hunt and fish and ride horses to your heart’s content! And, you can’t even promise to not fuck any other man, or woman for that matter, that catches your eye? You are god damn impossibly selfish! The only person you have ever been committed to in any way is a woman you haven’t seen in years! And, you weren’t even faithful to her!”

Karl watched Freddie and said nothing. There wasn’t anything to add.

Freddie glared at Karl. Unable to say anything else and hearing nothing from Karl, he walked to the apartment door and left, slamming it shut behind him. He stood on the landing with nowhere to go other than the office. At least there was a radio in there.

Rosie opened the back door to see Karl slumped on the door jamb. “Karl?”

“God, I’ve had a horrible day,” he said as he stepped inside. He dragged his hat off his head and tiredly walked toward the stairs. He heard Rosie come up behind him. She took his hand, and they went upstairs. He sat down in her reading chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Wilhelm Otterbach’s dead.”

Rosie gasped. “How? He’s barely been gone four weeks.”

“Scarlet fever on the Siegfried Line,” Karl said with resignation. “I screamed at Gerti today for just doing her job. Thank God the kids weren’t there first thing this morning.” Karl sat back and Rosie came to sit in his lap. He leaned his head against her and closed his eyes at her rhythmic stroking of his nape. “Frau Otterbach spit at me when I went over there to tell them. Herr Otterbach told me to give the Führer my own son. There was a demonic hatred in his eyes when I said I didn’t have a son to give. It was just a terrible day. And, Freddie wouldn’t even speak to me when I left just now.”

“You want to go take a bath?”

Karl sighed deeply. “I want to go home. I’m so tired, and I just want to go home,” he whispered.

Rosie put both her arms around him. She knew he wanted to go home to his old apartment in Berlin and back to his old life there. But, that Berlin was gone, and the one which replaced it was being bombed into rubble and ash. “You can be home with me,” she softly reassured him.

“Do you remember how we would go get coffee and _kuchen_ every afternoon?”

“That _konditerei_ around the corner from the office.”

“And, one afternoon when you were pregnant with Inge, we were having our torte, and you suddenly took my hand and put it on your rock hard belly. And, you said, _Feel that?_ And, I did. I felt a little fist or knee push up into my palm and across then disappear. That’s when I knew I had truly fucked up in not marrying you. Even after you married Paul, there were those little, fleeting moments you gave me….” Karl wiped a tear onto Rosie’s sweater. He looked up at her. “If I survive this, I’ll come back and wait for Paul with you.”

“And Freddie?”

Karl nestled his head against Rosie. “Freddie is going to go home to Dortmund; he told me. He and I just had the same argument you and I did when I told you I was gay. I might as well have told him I was straight.”

“What did you say?” Rosie asked.

“Nothing. He wants to be my one and only. I just told him it was good to know that. At least he can’t denounce me without implicating himself. I’ve always hated myself for not being able to overcome temptation and choose just one lover and then stick to my choice.” His arm was around her back, and he hugged her. 

“Do you remember how we used to pretend we were Sigurd and Brunhild?” Rosie asked trying to conjure up a good memory.

Karl smiled remembering how Rosie adamantly refused to marry the King, usually played with significant coercion by his little brother Siggy, who had been just as happy not to have to kiss her. “Of course, I do. Except we ran away and had exciting adventures instead of marrying the King and the Princess.”

“I wish we were still children playing that way,” Rosie sighed. “Feats of daring and love.”

Karl brushed his forehead against her hair. “I would do anything for you,” Karl confided. “Ride through a wall of flame, kill a dragon, slay the evil dwarves.”

“And, Freddie?”

“Same thing, because he’s already done most of that for me.”


	5. Friday, February 9

Karl lay in Rosie’s bed that night, holding her close to him. He couldn’t sleep. Windows were closing. Opportunities shrinking. Decisions forced. His hand barely brushed over her flat stomach. He felt his thumb sink into the divot of her navel and rise out. He marveled that women had such soft downy hair on their bodies. He suspected that Rosie was more involved in resisting the Party then just a barely regulation implementation of the national school curriculum, and he wondered how Herr Gottlieb may have implicated her. He lay awake nearly all night, though when the alarm rang at 5:45, his eyes were closed and ached with dryness when he opened them. 

He got out of bed and followed his usual morning routine when he spent the night. Rosie was awake when he came back from shaving. She silently watched him get dressed and come sit on the bed next to her. Rosie leaned her forehead on Karl’s shoulder, and he held her for a while. 

“Rosie,” Karl said in a soft but wavering voice. He stroked his hand over her cheek. “We have no idea what Gottlieb said to try and save his wife. I can’t bear the thought of something happening to you.” Karl finally whispered. “Is there anything?”

Rosie felt her chest tighten. There was plenty. “I never properly reported Inge’s death,” she finally whispered. 

“Oh.”

“I just couldn’t. They would have taken her _kennkart_ e, and it was the last thing that made her real. We snuck her out of the house and buried her in the forest. As far as anyone knows, she never really recovered and is bedridden with a bad heart. Our doctor was conscripted before she died, so all of our medical files are moldering away in his cellar.”

“And what about her ration card?”

“I still have it, but I never use it.”

“How many people know outside the three of us?”

Rosie hugged him. The three of _us_. “Just Father Nicholas, Herr Thaller, and Herr Kirschen the woodcutter. Herr Grosmann, the plumber, and Herr Gottlieb were hanged.”

That was a lot of people Karl thought. “Ok. I’ll think of something, but Rosie it may be time for you to leave.”

Rosie held Karl’s hand as he went downstairs. He silently buttoned his coat after she looped his scarf around his neck. His eyes ached with tears he wanted to let loose. Rosie hugged him tightly. She put her hand on the door handle and opened it as she kissed him. The cold air and snow swirled in around them.

Herr Thaller, the head librarian, happened to be walking by at that moment. “Grüss Gott, Frau Be—. Oh, excuse me,” he quickly said as he caught site of Rosie and Karl kissing in her doorway. He rushed away, hoping Karl wasn’t walking his direction. 

When Karl entered his apartment, Freddie was up. Karl went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Freddie, you look chipper this morning.”

Freddie nodded his head. “I made a decision, Karl, and I told you what I want.”

Returning to the table, Karl sat down with Freddie. “I think it’s the right decision. Your family is going to need you, and you don’t need to be worrying about whether I’ve got my eye on someone else.”

Freddie winced a bit. “Karl, I want you to come home to Dortmund with me. I know I’m asking a leopard to change his spots, but if you can….”

Karl patted Freddie on the cheek. “We’ve got a little time to sort things out.”

Freddie looked up a bit nervously. “And if you don’t, we can still be friends, Herr Klenzendorf?”

Karl nodded. “Herr Finkle, you’ve saved my ass too often for us not to be friends forever.” Karl stood up and hugged Freddie. “I love you, Freddie, and you know I don’t say that to just anyone.”

That afternoon while Gerti ran out to buy bread for her family, Freddie brought in a file for Karl to review and found him standing in a window, looking out at the snow. “Does it ever not snow here?” Freddie asked as he joined Karl. They leaned against the heavy solid shutters on opposite sides of the window. 

“Everyone tells me it’s been an unusual winter.” Karl flicked his ashes into the floor. He might as well tell Freddie now. “I’m not sure any German soldier who lives through this is going to have much of a say in what happens to him afterwards. But, if I’m able to, I’m staying here with Her for a while. She needs me. Her kids need me. Once her husband’s home, maybe then I can come up north.”

“Does She really think her husband’s coming home?”

“Of course, She does,” Karl answered hastily.

“Frau Betzler’s such an optimist.” Freddie looked quickly at Karl’s face. He saw a flicker of surprise: Karl’s eyebrows flew up, his eyes widened, and his lips winced. Then immediately his face settled back.

Karl smiled fondly. “She is.”

“Does she know about…?”

Karl barely nodded. “She knew the moment I told you to go get a vase for the flowers from Frau Gottlieb. I suppose she has a good eye for it.”

“And, you still trust her?” Freddie knew Rosie was no fan of the Party, but if she and Karl had a falling out, she could denounce him.

Karl took a deep drag on the end of his cigarette. “I do. I need to get over to the school.”

Freddie kicked at a scuff on the floor. “You need to apologize to Gerti for yesterday. She was only doing her job.”

Karl nodded. “I will.”

Freddie came home from his usual Friday evening date with Tekla to find Karl in the second floor classroom, artillery maps spread out on the tables. Karl was bent over them, measuring with calipers. “Sir?”

“Freddie.” Karl didn’t look up. He was calculating distance, time, and fuel along a route.

Freddie stepped into the room. He looked at the title blocks. The maps made one long string from Falkenheim on the old Czech border to the Bodensee where Germany, Austria, and Switzerland nestled together. “Where’d these come from?”

“Found them in a file cabinet at the hospital. The whole series for Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, the Tirol, and Vorarlberg.”

Freddie carefully glanced at Karl’s notepad. “Planning a trip?”

Karl nodded. “Summer touring vacation,” he said lightheartedly as he reached for his pencil. More seriously, he pulled over a smaller map of Central Europe with the current fronts marked. “Most likely the Americans will sweep southeast to take Stuttgart and Ulm. Munich, too, if the Russians don’t get there first, cutting our lines in half. There’s nothing west of Munich except cows. The Allgaü will be left for last. Eastern Bavaria, the Nazi heartland, may be left for the Russians to vengefully clean up.” Karl looked Freddie in the eye. “You know we do not want to be behind the Russian lines when this is over.”

Freddie silently nodded. “So, you’re planning a retreat to the southwest?”

“I’m seeing if we can get there.”

“When you say _we_ , do you mean….”

“The hospital.”

“But they have so many wounded now. They’ll be overwhelmed if this falls out this way.”

Karl nodded. “I know,” he said quietly. “It all depends on how fast the Americans move toward us. I’m just working on the plan. Other people get to debate the merits and ethics of it.”

Freddie looked at the northern part of the map. He put his finger on Dortmund. “Do you think the Allies have already divided up Germany?”

Karl nodded. “Your parents may end up living in the Netherlands.”

Freddie didn’t say that wouldn’t be too bad, unless the Dutch expelled all the Germans from their new territories. He started to leave then turned back to Karl. “Oh, Karl, I figured it out.”

Karl barely looked up. “Figured what out?”

“How to pay someone who’s missing in action.”

“Ok, how?”

“Transfer him to the Kreigsmarine’s standing pay orders list. I asked my friend in the finance office at the hospital, and the navy all have standing pay orders to disperse their pay to their families. The list is administered from Berlin. All you need is one person to slip the form into the stack.”

“How would someone not notice a Heer officer transferred to the Kriegsmarine?” Karl asked skeptically.

“He was an engineer, right? Don’t navies have construction battalions?”

“But, what about the muster rolls?”

“Karl, do you have any idea how often muster rolls, pay books, and the Wehrmacht accounts at the Reichsbank are physically audited? Once a year, maybe. More like once a decade. There have been more than five million men in uniform since 1939. That’s a minimum of sixty million lines that have to be individually cross-referenced. And, do you think it’s upright accountants doing that work? It’s eighteen year old privates whose eyes glaze over after an hour. No one is going to notice an extra two hundred RM a month in the pay list of a naval group. Not for years. And , if someone does, they’ll probably assume it’s just an error. Hell, they might start giving him naval captain’s pay instead of army captain’s pay.”

Karl appreciated the clarity of thought but hoped the Wehrmacht was not that casual with pay orders. “I really find this more disturbing than comforting, in so many ways.”

Freddie shrugged. “Well, it’s how I’d do it. I just need a friend in Berlin.”

Karl smiled. He was sure Paul had friends in Berlin. “I should keep a better eye on you.”

“You’ve only got the one left,” Freddie teased. “I’m going to bed. You coming?”

Karl looked at his notes. “Yeah. I can finish this in the morning.” Karl grabbed Freddie around the shoulders and kissed him playfully. “How’s Fraulein Braun?”

Freddie groaned. “Still relentless. I’m starting to think she may be a nymphomaniac.”

“Where’d you learn that word?” Karl asked following Freddie upstairs. 

“In the medical books at the library.”

“I don’t know, Freddie. In my experience, women are just as sexually driven as men, but women have to worry about getting pregnant.”

“Which is why being gay is so much easier,” Freddie exclaimed in utter exasperation. “Can’t knock up a man.”

Karl burst out laughing. 


	6. Tuesday, February 13

It had been such an innocuous comment yesterday afternoon. Freddie was going over a list of names when he pointed out one to Gerti as misspelled. She had balked about retyping a whole page and asked if it really mattered. Freddie had gone on about a solider whose name was misspelled and how it messed up his pay and orders and the lengths it took Freddie to correct it. Karl had overheard the short conversation as he came down the stairs, and it was like he’d been shot with lightning.

After the weekly command and staff meeting at the hospital, Karl was standing in the repository room. The hospital kept a copy of every casualty list produced by Berlin. A sergeant was the chief clerk. He was running down a list with a ruler, stopping to occasionally mark a name.

“Sergeant, I’m looking to see if some friends survived the 33rd Engineers.”

“33rd Division, sir? They were in Africa?”

“Yes.”

“You’re in luck. We just got the revised, cross referenced, and bound final edition of that debacle.” He set his ruler on the page so he could pick up where he left off and got up to find the book Karl needed. “Here it is.” He hefted the huge book from the oversized shelf and dropped it with a thwump on a vacant desk. “Help yourself, Captain. It’s alphabetical by date.”

Karl pulled his ruler out of his greatcoat pocket and sat down in the creaky chair. There was a letter postmarked in November and dated October 20, 1942. Karl found October 20, 1942, and started looking from there. He read through the entire list for each day and wrote possible mismatches on a sheet of paper. None seemed close enough though. Often the _wehrnummers_ were radically wrong. The first two numbers were the birth year, and Paul had been born in 1901. As Karl kept reading, he began to think this was ridiculous. Paul could have actually been fed up enough to have deserted, but Paul would never leave Rosie to fend for herself against the Reich. 

And, then Karl found it on the list for November 3. _Beltzer, Raul Josef 10/79/5/9, #??72_ died in a British field hospital near El Alamein, Egypt. Paul’s _wehrnummer_ was on Jojo’s DJ application as 01/79/6/9, and he spelled his middle name _Jozef_. There were several explanatory notations after the entry. “Sergeant,” Karl called. “Can you help me here?”

The sergeant came over to Karl. “Sir?”

“What do these notes mean?”

The sergeant ran his finger across the entry. “This name came in without a recruiting district, and it is a complete mismatch. There is no man with that name, that _wehrnummer_ , and that partial dog tag number registered anywhere in the Reich.”

“But, what does that mean?”

“Usually it means the dog tags or _soldbuch_ were partially destroyed or otherwise illegible. Or, that some clerk somewhere made a typo. We won’t find out until the war is over and the International Red Cross can get into all the original records. Berlin keeps a list of mismatches that need final disposition.”

Karl nodded and kept looking through the rest of the _B’s_ in the book, but he was sure he had finally found his old friend. Paul Betzler was never coming home. And, what was he supposed to do with this information? Should he tell Rosie? Would she even believe him? Karl closed the book and returned it to the sergeant. 

“Did you find your friends, sir?” the sergeant asked as he returned the book to its place on the shelves. 

“No, sergeant. I didn’t.” Karl tried to sound relieved.

“Good for them, sir.”

“Is there a telephone office around here?”

“You can use mine, if you’d like, sir.”

“I need to call up to Nuremberg.”

“Oh. For that you do need to get a long distance line. The telephone office is on the administrative hall. Second floor, west wing, sir.”

“Thank you.” Karl smiled as well as he could now that the whole world had irreversibly changed. He left the basement and climbed the busy, carbolic-scented stairs to the second floor. He planned to just knock on the office door and ask to use the phone. He thought about how to make this call as brief as possible.

“Captain Klenzendorf!”

Lost in his own thoughts, Karl looked up to see the hospital commander, Oberst Doctor St. Johannes. “Sir.”

“What are you doing still here? Usually you zoom on back to town.”

“I was looking for a friend in the records room. I haven’t heard from him in so long. Luckily, I didn’t find him. And, now, I need to make a phone call to Nuremberg.”

“ _Jugend_ business?” St. Johannes asked

Karl guiltily smiled. “No. Personal. A youthful indiscretion with a married woman that lasts twenty one years,” he lied. 

St. Johannes nodded. This was the first he heard that Karl might actually have a living relation. The doctor assumed he was on the hook for some kind of compensation to the family. “More than one man has experienced that. Would you like to use my office?”

“That would be very kind, sir.”

The hospital commander showed Karl into his office, and Karl thought it looked a lot like his own office. What was once luxurious was now an administrative dumping ground of manuals, file folders, and excess cabinets. The hospital commander did not have a stuffed peacock, though. Karl sat down in a green leather chair and dialed for an operator. He gave her the phone number to Zurich Leon. The phone call clicked as it was transferred along until Karl heard the ringing tone. “Grüss Gott. Karl Klenzendorf for Herr St. George.”

In his meticulously decorated office accompanied only by the ticking of the baroque mantle clock, Herr St. George answered his phone. “Gutentag, Herr Klenzendorf.”

“Do you recall that delicate situation of which we spoke last month?” Karl discovered the chair spun.

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Well, it has come to pass.” he said, spinning around to look out the broad window behind the desk. “I also need to know the disposition of my grandmother’s property in Allgau.”

Herr St. George flipped a page in a file. “You have a tenant for the land. He maintains the house, but no one is currently living there.”

“My fiancée and her children may need to relocate there. I’ll need the keys.”

“Would you kindly hold while I check the vault?”

“Of course.” Karl swiveled back and forth as he listened to the dead silence. Eventually, the very faint sound of leather shoes squeaking on a wood floor was heard.

“My courier will call on you next week. What time is convenient?”

Karl thought which was the busiest day of the week in the office. “3:30 on Wednesday. If no one is available, just leave the package on my desk in my office, second floor.”

“Certainly, Herr Klenzendorf. As always, it is a pleasure servicing your needs.”


	7. Wednesday, February 14

Captain Deertz had a new list in his hands. It was all the phone calls made from the _Jugend_ telephone line since December. He’d had the local switchboard log every one of them. None were at all suspicious. He used a piece of tape to hang it next to Karl’s name on the chalkboard. Deertz glanced over his shoulder at the ever shifting sociogram on the floor. The kindergarten teacher had begged him for a pregnancy test when he arrested her. He was doubtful. Women always said they were pregnant. It gained them three days. This time, she’d been correct. Judge Neufeld had pity on her unborn, illegitimate child, especially when Fraulein Sprecher admitted the father was a married surgeon at the Falkenheim Army Hospital. She’d been sent to a women’s camp for hard labor, but with a caution to make sure her Aryan baby was born healthy and adoptable if his father was unable to take custody. Judge Neufeld said not to get the _feldjägerkorps_ involved. The Wehrmacht needed surgeons, and the Reich needed babies.

Deertz stared at Rosie’s name. He wasn’t sure if Paul was alive or dead, but he didn’t assume Herr Betzler was ever coming back to Falkenheim. Klenzendorf didn’t seem the type to take responsibility for any marital discord he caused. Deertz was ready to put down money that the Betzlers and Klenzendorf had been raving libertine socialists in their youths. And, they had all lived in Berlin near the same time. That was interesting. It didn’t occur to him that four million other people lived in Berlin with them. Deertz worried about Johannes growing up in such a home. Once the war was over, perhaps he could recommend the boy for one of the elite residential Adolf Hitler Schools[1] and get the child away from such influences. 

Underlining Herr Volkmann, the bicycle repairman, Deertz decided it was time to take a closer look at him.

[1] These residential schools were a real thing and admitted students aged 14-18. Only ten of an envisioned fifty were ever opened. Students were selected on the basis of political and social reliability, physical health, and racial purity. 


End file.
